Can machines dream? (Part 2)

Quoting Ron Burnett, Emily Carr University
Imaging of the brain can provides pictures of the connections between different parts, but imaging cannot provide details of what Gregory Bateson has so aptly described as the set of differences that make relations between the parts of the mind possible. “The interaction between parts of mind is triggered by difference, and difference is a non-substantial phenomenon not located in space or time… (Bateson, 1972: 92)

Ronny Siebes, Free University of Amsterdam
If I understand you correctly, you mean that our imaging techniques only allow us to make snap-shots of a fixed state of our neurons (by doing terrible animal experiments) or energy levels (PET, CT, MRI or EEG-scans). I agree with that.

Besides this I still believe (rationally) that every state change has a physical cause, and therefore a physical change in neuron-activity also has a physical cause. I'm not sure what Bateson and you exactly mean by 'difference', but allow me to give my definition by introducing another example: difference is like a comparison between a high and low pressure areas in the weather domain. We 'see' wind indirectly by experiencing that the trees are moving. Also when we make satellite pictures of the clouds and measure other things like pressure and temperature, we can see that there is a 'difference' between the values of these properties when comparing the high- and low pressure area.

However this is not enough to *explain* the reason (cause) for this difference. Physics only allows us to come up with theories (models) and when they describe reality precisely (by doing direct or indirect observational experiments) we assume that we know the reason for the difference. In other words, physics only provides detailed discriptions and models of the input and output behaviour of certain physical 'objects' that we experience in reality.

Like wind, 'thoughts' and 'dreams' and other mental utterances of our brain are, in contrast with snap-shots of mental activity, words used for pointing to eventsand processes. A dream is only a dream when there is something going on, meaning that a snap-shot is not enough to describe it because the process includes transitions between the states.

Again, physics is limited in this sense that it can only try to explain the difference between two snap-shots of our brain (where the difference could indicate that the person was dreaming), by giving a detailed descriptions of the state of the objects that can be seen on the snap-shots and come up with theories that caused the changes.

To conclude: Although I know that we humans are able to experience events like wind and dreams, we have to deal with a limited toolkit (science) that only allows us to look at snap-shots and come up with theories that explain the causal differences between those different states.

I agree that difference is a non-substantial phenomenon but therefore it can also not be investigated by science and therefore must be researched by another method. I do not mean that non-scientific investigations are less important than scientific ones, however I am personally limited to the use of rational (i.e. scientific) argumentation in a discussion about our brains. I am completely aware of my limitation :-) and also am convinced that science allows us to explain only a (perhaps very small) subset of the things we experience.

Response from Ron Burnett
I agree that science provides us with models and that inevitably there are limitations to what can be described. The distinction for me is between investigations of the brain and how we research, talk about and explain the mind. The brain is a physical, biological object. It is in the simplest sense, matter. The question is whether scientific research into the brain using more and more complex imaging technologies ends up creating metaphors that overwhelm the complexity of what the mind does.

Science reduces to idealize which is what I understand by modeling. Rationalism looks at cause(s) and effect(s). In these instances, (for the purposes of this debate) the danger is that the many elements that make up the human body, from homeopathic pathways to the immune system as well as the complex networks of interaction between neurons that constitute brain activity, will be reduced to function (alism). Reasoned argument is essential, but can a reductive argument work here?

So, is it the limitations of science itself that we are discussing? Or are we dealing with models and paradigms that tend to focus on what can be researched and from which extrapolations are made that lead in potentially dangerous directions?

A large measure of what we describe as intelligence is derived from our own, quite self-reflexive understanding of thought processes. We understand intelligence from a very subjective point of view. We know very little about how the electrical and chemical activity of the brain translates into intelligence. We do know that we are capable of incredible mental feats. For example, our use of language is just one of many activities we engage in for which we have a fragmentary understanding. There may well be a part of the brain, for example that deals with language, but as Edelman and Tononi point out, it is likely that the complex processing of information of this sort is distributed throughout the brain.

This means that it takes millions of interactions among neurons across networks connected in millions of predictable and unpredictable patterns and ways for a simple sentence to be formulated. Ironically, we can only hypothesize that the sentences so produced actually relate to the thought(s) we have had. (Ramachandran, & Blakeslee, 1998)

Part Three…

Can machines dream?

This series is in FIVE parts.

Ronny Siebes is a researcher at the Free University of Amsterdam. He and I met recently in The Hague and the ensuing email exchange represents only a small facet of the longer discussion that we had.

Ronny Siebes
I thought about the question you asked "Can machines dream" and have the following answer:

First, I would like to give my definition of what human dreaming is. Most humans know that they sometimes dream and may remember what they have dreamt, like the images, sounds or other impressions. Obviously, these things like pictures are not really there in the head because we don't have eyes in our head to look at them and if we had, it is too dark to see it (Dennet:). I'm not an expert on neuroscience but I guess that the brain works like this: images (encoded in a parallel bundle of light beams) that our eyes receive trigger a set of neurons that are responsible for interpretating visual input and these interpretations are stored in our memory. When we dream, parts of our memory become active and are manipulated by a script generated by fears, angers or other chemical impulses.

For this information to be remembered, the outcomes of these manipultion processes which are generated by the scripts are stored back again into our memory. Our consciousness (whatever that may be) walks through our memory and recognises that there is new information, namely the new stuff that was added by the dream process.

Computers are also able to receive, store and manipulate information from the outside world. For example, take a computer that has a web-cam connected to it and stores the bitstream on a hard disk or other kind of memory. It is easy to build a program that reads out the bits that represent the movie and to manipulate it. This manipulation would currently be very rude (for example just change some colors, or cut/copy- and paste some shots), but also very advanced like algorithms that detect scenarios and are able to replace objects by other objects. These manipulated movies can be stored again and after a while be 'played' (my free definition of becoming conscious) in a macromeda or windows media player.

Thus to summarize my point: if we describe human dreaming by its functional properties, we can apply it to its artificial counterpart.

Response by Ron Burnett

Imaging of the brain can provides pictures of the connections between different parts, but imaging cannot provide details of what Gregory Bateson has so aptly described as the set of differences that make relations between the parts of the mind possible. “The interaction between parts of mind is triggered by difference, and difference is a non-substantial phenomenon not located in space or time… (Bateson, 1972: 92)

Difference is not the product of processes in the brain. Thought cannot be located in one specific location; in fact difference means that the notion of location is all but impossible other than in the most general of senses. Bateson goes on to ask how parts interact to make mental processes possible. This is also a central concern in the work of Gerald Edelman, particularly in the book he co-authored with Giulio Tononi (2000) where they point out how the neurosciences have begun to seriously investigate consciousness as a scientific ‘subject.’ (3) Edelman and Tononi summarize the challenge in this way:

What we are trying to do is not just to understand how the behaviour or cognitive operations of another human being can be explained in terms of the working of his or her brain, however daunting that task may be. We are not just trying to connect a description of something out there with a more scientific description. Instead, we are trying to connect a description of something out there — the brain — with something in here — an experience, our own individual experience that is occurring to us as conscious observers. (11)

The disparities between the brain and conscious observation, between a sense of self and biological operations cannot be reduced to something objective, rather, the many layers of difference among all of the elements that make up thought can only be judged through the various strategies that we use to understand subjectivity. Edelman and Bateson try and disengage a series of cultural metaphors that cover up the complexity of consciousness.

One of these metaphors is that the brain is like a computer and that human memory stores information much like a hard disk. There is simply not enough evidence to suggest that the metaphor works. So, machines cannot dream because among many other things, we don't have an adequate definition of what the mind does when it dreams. All we have is the language of metaphor and description, a semantically rich space that cannot be reduced to any single or singular process.

Part Two…

Hypochondriac Culture (6)

Imagine the following. There is a sudden change in your body temperature. Your heart starts to beat more quickly. You begin to sweat. You have read about the symptoms of a heart attack. You beging to think that you are having a heart attack. Your anxiety rises. The combination of fear, fantasy and a catalogue of symptoms that you have heard about through our culture pushes you closer and closer to a panic attack.

Hypochondria is rarely a personal or private expression of symptoms and behviour. It is a private pain that has its roots inside image-worlds that are packed with information. In this case, information about symptoms may produce them.

Hypochondriac Culture (5)

What happens when you eat junk food? Although most diets in the United States and Canada are based on a variety of prepared and junk foods, the reality is that people continue to eat as if their actions will produce no effect. The contrast between the fetish for health and the disregard for nutrition is one of the central paradoxes of Hypochondria.  

Part Six

Hypochondriac Culture (4)

In cultures devoted to the body, there are any number of different ways in which hypochondria manifests itself. One of the overwhelming cultural concerns of the moment is what is being described as an epidemic of obesity. The response has been an epidemic of diets, diet movements and articles in magazines and newspapers about weight, body shape and health. I am not suggesting that a population that is generally overweight is a good thing. I support healthy living and exercise and so on. The challenge is how to explain weight, the body and biology in such a way that people do not get scared and worried about their health. Fear of the consequences is only one of many possible ways in which individuals will come to grips with the challenges that they face. But, fear can overtake the process and in fact lead to a defensive or stoical response. A fatalistic attitude is not the answer, but if the odds seem too great, and the fear too strong, why attack the core of the issue? Weight is as much about overeating as it is about an inability to "see" the body, to see our own bodies.

The aesthetics of body image -- how we hold to and understand our own sense of self, will not be solved by just losing weight.